The Holocaust

April 29 th Starter

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Take out piece of paper and pen/pencil for notes.

What comes to mind when you hear:

The Holocaust

Hitler wanted to create a superior race of “pure Germans,” called the Aryan Race

Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, communists, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, political opponents

Anti-Semitism: hostility towards or discrimination against Jews

First Solution (1933 – 1938): Persecution

Boycott of Jewish businesses began in 1933

SA pickets, wearing boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. The signs read: "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" and "Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!"

Two Nazi stormtroopers stand guard in front of the H. L. Heimann store in Bopfingen, to prevent would-be shoppers from violating the Nazi boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

Anti-Jewish Laws

Fired from public service jobs

Not allowed to attend public schools

Where they could live and travel was limited

1935: Nuremberg Laws passed

Defined who was a Jew

Said Jews were not citizens

The fire department only made sure the fire did not spread to the building next to the synagogue

View of the interior of the Essenweinstrasse synagogue in Nuremberg following its destruction during Kristallnacht.

1935-1938: Subtle pressure to force Jews to leave Germany

Germans bought up Jewish businesses for ½ its worth

1938: persecution becomes more aggressive

Jewish property taken

Forced to take on Israel and Sarah as middle names

Forced to wear the yellow star

Second Solution (1939-1941): Isolation

Jews relocated to ghettos

food rations and living conditions were very poor

Warsaw, Poland – largest ghetto

Many transferred to labor/concentration camps

Einsatzgruppen: mobile killing squads used in Poland and Russia

Final Solution (1942): genocide

Wannsee Conference January 20, 1942

– Nazi Officials come up with “final solution” to exterminate all Jews

6 major death camps created: Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Maidanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Belzec

Jews from the Lodz ghetto board deportation trains for the Chelmno death camp

Hundreds of Jews wait to board deportation trains at the railroad station in Würzburg. Their luggage and bed rolls are piled in the center of the platform.

“ Work makes one free”

Gas Chambers

Many victims did not know of their upcoming death, referred to as baths/showers

Carbon monoxide and Zyklon B were used as poison

Majdanek:The rear side of a gas chamber. The furnace to the right was used to create carbon monoxide for gassing prisoners.

Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945.

(Above) Bales of hair shaven from women at Auschwitz, used to make felt-yarn. (Below) After liberation, an Allied soldier displays a stash of gold wedding rings taken from victims at Buchenwald.

1944-1945 camps began to be liberated by Allies

Video and pictures taken to document the atrocities

“ In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.”